twizzle wrote:Alloy freehubs. Just sooooo durable, but I guess "The Market" replaces the wheels before they need to get that cassette off.

Agree. I'm only a middle weight but have had problems with notching alloy freehubs.

twizzle wrote:"Unique" spokes. Because it's always fun to wait weeks to get a replacement for that spoke you broke, isn't it?

I had to run around the bike shops to find someone who had a 254mm spoke on a fairly common Shimano MTB wheel. Or so I thought.

twizzle wrote:Although, I really do like the Shimano two-piece setup, it is engineering elegance.

Too bad the bearings don't last too long and they can cause a spindle to fail if they seize. Having said that, I've got two working sets and two spares.

twizzle wrote:Shimano's chain rings for the last few years. Cheaper to buy a new crankset than buy replacement chain rings - if you could even find them.

Agree. Starting to think it is part of their marketing push. I wasn't real happy with how long 105 chainwheels lasted either. Not many cheaper options though.

twizzle wrote:11 speed - because it has to be better than ten speed. Right? Or because it wears out quicker and you spend more on servicing.

I've read from others that the more cogs, the shorter the chain lifespan, but we keep getting more cogs. Can't help but think it's almost a license to print money for the major manufacturers. I held on to 7 speed on the MTB until 8 speed parts were cheaper than 7 speed. I suppose I'll have to upgrade to 9 speed eventually...

twizzle wrote:Carbon rims with alloy braking surfaces - awesome, a heavy rim that wears out just like ones you can buy for 25% of the price, and all you get is a .2kph speed advantage once over 40kph!

But it's carbon, it must be better.

twizzle wrote:Everything claiming that a 15 gram saving in weight was worth the doubling in price.

Yes I feel sorry for WWs too.

twizzle wrote:Garmin - making you pay twice the price to get a feature that was implemented in the software and could have been made available to all of the older models.

Pretty common practice with commercial electronics. Some equipment has every option already loaded and you have to pay the company for the upgrade code. Probably cheaper to manufacture that way.

Last edited by Nobody on Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

On a mountain bike with slicks yes. Rim brakes IMO do the job just fine and dandy, regardless of conditions. The limiting factor IMO is not braking power, but grip, when you only have 23mm wide tyres rim brakes will lock the wheel no problems, and in terms of modulation/control there's no issue. From where i'm standing disc brakes on road bikes is just the manufacturers looking to make a bunch of parts obsolete so they charge through the nose for the 'newer, better' stuff.

When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments- Elizabeth West.

ldrcycles wrote:On a mountain bike with slicks yes. Rim brakes IMO do the job just fine and dandy, regardless of conditions. The limiting factor IMO is not braking power, but grip, when you only have 23mm wide tyres rim brakes will lock the wheel no problems, and in terms of modulation/control there's no issue.

For you there may be no issue with modulation with wet rim braking, but many would disagree in their case. Especially for the all important initial bite in emergency braking.

bikeradar.com wrote:Simply put, the Avid BB7 road brakes are flat-out brilliant as compared to conventional rim brakes – but not in the sense of absolute power, as most people assume.

No, the main advantage is modulation of that power. Once we got used to the bike's heightened capabilities, we approached tricky downhill corners faster than with just about any other road brake we've used, confident with the knowledge that we could reliably scrub a precise amount of speed with fingertip control. Ultimate stopping power is largely a function of a tire's grip on the road but with the Liscio's discs, it's far easier to extract all of that power without fear of crossing the threshold into dangerous lock-up.

In fact, locking up even the rear wheel proved surprisingly difficult to do. Stopping power builds in such a linear and predictable fashion that you have to violently slam the rear lever all the way to the bar while simultaneously shifting your weight forward to initiate a skid – and yet stopping distances from any speed are still surprisingly short and repeatable.

Riders living in mountainous regions will also find solace in the Liscio brakes' greater heat capacity than rim brakes. Whereas extended brake application and the resultant heat build-up in clincher or tubular rims can produce a dangerous blowout or rolled tire, you can drag the BB7 to your heart's content with little consequence.

ldrcycles wrote:On a mountain bike with slicks yes. Rim brakes IMO do the job just fine and dandy, regardless of conditions. The limiting factor IMO is not braking power, but grip, when you only have 23mm wide tyres rim brakes will lock the wheel no problems, and in terms of modulation/control there's no issue.

For you there may be no issue with modulation with wet rim braking, but many would disagree in their case. Especially for the all important initial bite in emergency braking.

bikeradar.com wrote:Simply put, the Avid BB7 road brakes are flat-out brilliant as compared to conventional rim brakes – but not in the sense of absolute power, as most people assume.

No, the main advantage is modulation of that power. Once we got used to the bike's heightened capabilities, we approached tricky downhill corners faster than with just about any other road brake we've used, confident with the knowledge that we could reliably scrub a precise amount of speed with fingertip control. Ultimate stopping power is largely a function of a tire's grip on the road but with the Liscio's discs, it's far easier to extract all of that power without fear of crossing the threshold into dangerous lock-up.

In fact, locking up even the rear wheel proved surprisingly difficult to do. Stopping power builds in such a linear and predictable fashion that you have to violently slam the rear lever all the way to the bar while simultaneously shifting your weight forward to initiate a skid – and yet stopping distances from any speed are still surprisingly short and repeatable.

Riders living in mountainous regions will also find solace in the Liscio brakes' greater heat capacity than rim brakes. Whereas extended brake application and the resultant heat build-up in clincher or tubular rims can produce a dangerous blowout or rolled tire, you can drag the BB7 to your heart's content with little consequence.

I don't understand people who think disc brakes are not necessary, each to his own I guess. In the dry with continuous heavy braking I used to find my MTB rims would heat up to the point were you could spit on them and they would sizzle a little, not far off a blow out, I've had had brake pads chew straight through the rim on particularily muddy days and the initial bite of road brakes in the wet just isn't there till the water clears then it feels like your rims are being eaten away (on steep decents mostly). I'll be disc brakes on the road very soon and I won't be going back.

There is a big difference between stopping a downhill mountain bike on gravel at 60 km/h and a road bike on slicks (on tarmac) at 60 km/h.

I'd love to get discs for a road bike for commuting. Mainly because of wet-weather performace. But having said modern dual-caliper brakes work very well and are still excellent in the dry. It was one of the main things that really stood out for me when I test rode some newer bikes this year.

Brake fade for repeated high-speed braking on tarmac is an still an issue as far as I can see. Maybe improvements in mechanical discs will fill the breach.

Rim brakes are fine on the road, its such a sterile environment (no, really!) that an actual need for more power is rare. I am heavy, and I do big descents; I have no issue.

Off-road...Vs were an enormous improvement, decent discs were a revelation. As a DH and XC racer in the 90s I can say the difference in what was possible on a canti bike to a disc bike was chalk and cheese. Add in the rapid improvement in tyre and chassis tech that trailed brake tech only slightly and the difference between say a '96 bike and a '99 one was far greater than if you compared the '96 bike to one from 10 years before it. On the trail its impossible to get too much brake; I just went from Elixirs to Zees on my AM bike and the braking points and lines you can use with that kind of power are just amazing. Most of what we have today in mountain bike technology really only followed in the wake of making the things stop. As for the argument that most riding isn't racing, better brakes mean a wider margin of error, less hand stress, less stress on the terrain etc.

Regarding the crank spindles, I think its fairly big of them to admit there is an issue. I can think of a number of manufacturers who have bought half baked concepts to market quite knowingly, to play the warranty return vs sales numbers game. Shimano aren't introducing a new standard, just changing materials.

I'm very glad square tapers have largely disappeared, it was a wholly inappropriate standard off-road and of dubious merit for stronger/heavier road riders. After flogging out an inordinate number of crank tapers and breaking quite a few spindles I was happy to see the splined and 2 piece interfaces come in.

floody wrote:Regarding the crank spindles, I think its fairly big of them to admit there is an issue. I can think of a number of manufacturers who have bought half baked concepts to market quite knowingly, to play the warranty return vs sales numbers game. Shimano aren't introducing a new standard, just changing materials.

I'm very glad square tapers have largely disappeared, it was a wholly inappropriate standard off-road and of dubious merit for stronger/heavier road riders. After flogging out an inordinate number of crank tapers and breaking quite a few spindles I was happy to see the splined and 2 piece interfaces come in.

After seeing all these people harking on about square taper I finally see someone who has the same issues as me with square taper, I used to be continuously replacing bottom brackets and now hardly ever long live the modern bottom brackets. Don't agree about the rim brakes though, disc brakes have better modulation not necessarily more power in the dry, I stacked it on Sunday due to what was partially a modulation related issue and also stupidty on my part. I find disc brakes have more different levels of effectiveness throughout the lever action than my rim brakes.

Oh look good V brakes can be very good...as good as any of the cross country discs, however throw a bent rim, mud, dust, cable contamination etc into the equation and they end up on the losing end. Decent V brakes are as good as any brake for the sort of riding you can do on a hardtail with a short travel fork and fast rolling tyres.No V will approach something like Zee, Saint, XTR Trail, Formula The One etc with big rotors in power for more aggressive riding.

floody wrote:I'm very glad square tapers have largely disappeared, it was a wholly inappropriate standard off-road and of dubious merit for stronger/heavier road riders. After flogging out an inordinate number of crank tapers and breaking quite a few spindles I was happy to see the splined and 2 piece interfaces come in.

After seeing all these people harking on about square taper I finally see someone who has the same issues as me with square taper, I used to be continuously replacing bottom brackets and now hardly ever long live the modern bottom brackets.

Dunno what the heck you guys do with your bikes. The BB in my commuter is an el-cheapo square taper cartridge, which has almost 15,000km on it without any issues. There is still no play in it at all. I'll be wrapt to get another 5,000 out of it, but it may well do another 15,000. I should note that it has been ridden through water more than once. And at 181cm/92kg, I'm not exactly small and light. Dunno how many km the BB in my racer has done. It was in there when I bought it. Still going strong.